A taxon can be classified as extinct if it is broadly agreed or certified that no members of the group are still alive. Conversely, an extinct taxon can be reclassified as extant if there are new discoveries of extant species ("Lazarus species"), or if previously-known extant species are reclassified as members of the taxon.

All professions maintain their parochialisms, and I trust that nonpaleontological readers will forgive our major manifestation. We are paleontologists, so we need a name to contrast ourselves with all you folks who study modern organisms in human or ecologicaltime. You therefore become neontologists. We do recognize the unbalanced and parochial nature of this dichotomous division.[2]

Neontological evolutionary biology has a temporal perspective between 100 to 1000 years. Neontology's fundamental basis relies on models of natural selection as well as speciation. Neontology's methods, when compared to evolutionary paleontology, has a greater emphasis on experiments. There are more frequent discontinuities present in paleontology than in neontology, because paleontology involves extinct taxa. Neontology has organisms actually present and available to sample and perform research on.[1] Neontology's research method uses cladistics to examine morphologies and genetics. Neontology data has more emphasis on genetic data and the population structure than paleontology does.[2]

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When the scientific community accepted the synthetic theory of evolution, taxonomies became phylogenetic.[3] As a result, information gaps arose within the fossil record of species- especially in Homo sapiens. The anthropologists who accepted the synthetic theory, reject the idea of an "ape man" because the concept had mistaken paleontology with neontology.[4] An ape man, in actuality, would be a primate with traits that would represent anything in between Homo sapiens and the great apes. If the concept of an ape man was based on neontology, then our phenotype would resemble Bigfoot. Since the concept was based on paleontology, the idea of an ape man could possibly be represented by the fossil hominids.[5]

Neontology studies extant taxa and also recently extinct taxa, but declaring a taxon to be definitively extinct is difficult. Taxa that have previously been declared extinct may reappear over time. Species that were once considered extinct and then reappear unscathed are characterized by the term "The Lazarus effect", or are also called a Lazarus species.[6] For example, a study determined that 36% of supposed mammalian extinction had been resolved, while the other 64% had insufficient evidence to be declared extinct or had been rediscovered.[7] Currently, the International Union for Conservation of Nature considers a taxon to be recently extinct if the extinction occurred after 1500 C.R.[8] The most recently considered extinct mammal was the Bouvier's red colobus monkey, who was considered extinct up until 2015 when it was rediscovered after no recorded sightings for 40 years.[9]

Neontology's fundamental theories relies on biological models of natural selection and speciation that connects genes, the unit of heredity with the mechanism of evolution, natural selection.[citation needed] For example, researchers utilized neontological and paleontological datasets to study mouse dentitions compared with human dentitions. In order to understand the underlying genetic mechanisms that influences this variation between nonhuman primates and humans, neontological methods are applied to the research method. By incorporating neontology with different biological research methods, it can become clear how genetic mechanisms underlie major events in things such as primate evolution.[10]

1.
Biology
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Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, evolution, distribution, identification and taxonomy. Modern biology is a vast and eclectic field, composed of branches and subdisciplines. However, despite the broad scope of biology, there are certain unifying concepts within it that consolidate it into single, coherent field. In general, biology recognizes the cell as the unit of life, genes as the basic unit of heredity. It is also understood today that all organisms survive by consuming and transforming energy and by regulating their internal environment to maintain a stable, the term biology is derived from the Greek word βίος, bios, life and the suffix -λογία, -logia, study of. The Latin-language form of the term first appeared in 1736 when Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus used biologi in his Bibliotheca botanica, the first German use, Biologie, was in a 1771 translation of Linnaeus work. In 1797, Theodor Georg August Roose used the term in the preface of a book, karl Friedrich Burdach used the term in 1800 in a more restricted sense of the study of human beings from a morphological, physiological and psychological perspective. The science that concerns itself with these objects we will indicate by the biology or the doctrine of life. Although modern biology is a recent development, sciences related to. Natural philosophy was studied as early as the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indian subcontinent, however, the origins of modern biology and its approach to the study of nature are most often traced back to ancient Greece. While the formal study of medicine back to Hippocrates, it was Aristotle who contributed most extensively to the development of biology. Especially important are his History of Animals and other works where he showed naturalist leanings, and later more empirical works that focused on biological causation and the diversity of life. Aristotles successor at the Lyceum, Theophrastus, wrote a series of books on botany that survived as the most important contribution of antiquity to the plant sciences, even into the Middle Ages. Scholars of the medieval Islamic world who wrote on biology included al-Jahiz, Al-Dīnawarī, who wrote on botany, biology began to quickly develop and grow with Anton van Leeuwenhoeks dramatic improvement of the microscope. It was then that scholars discovered spermatozoa, bacteria, infusoria, investigations by Jan Swammerdam led to new interest in entomology and helped to develop the basic techniques of microscopic dissection and staining. Advances in microscopy also had a impact on biological thinking. In the early 19th century, a number of biologists pointed to the importance of the cell. Thanks to the work of Robert Remak and Rudolf Virchow, however, meanwhile, taxonomy and classification became the focus of natural historians

2.
Paleontology
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene Epoch. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms evolution and interactions with each other, paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuviers work on comparative anatomy, and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term itself originates from Greek παλαιός, palaios, i. e. old, ancient, ὄν, on, i. e. being, creature and λόγος, logos, i. e. speech, thought, study. Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics. The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics, molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend. The simplest definition is the study of ancient life, paleontology is one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology, geology, astronomy, cosmology, philology and history itself. This means that it aims to describe phenomena of the past, hence it has three main elements, description of the phenomena, developing a general theory about the causes of various types of change, and applying those theories to specific facts. Sometimes the smoking gun is discovered by an accident during other research. Paleontology lies on the boundary between biology and geology since paleontology focuses on the record of past life but its source of evidence is fossils. In addition paleontology often uses techniques derived from other sciences, including biology, osteology, ecology, chemistry, techniques developed in engineering have been used to analyse how ancient organisms might have worked, for example how fast Tyrannosaurus could move and how powerful its bite was. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised subdivisions, vertebrate paleontology concentrates on fossils of vertebrates, from the earliest fish to the immediate ancestors of modern mammals. Invertebrate paleontology deals with fossils of such as molluscs, arthropods. Paleobotany focuses on the study of plants, but traditionally includes the study of fossil algae. Palynology, the study of pollen and spores produced by plants and protists. Micropaleontology deals with all microscopic fossil organisms, regardless of the group to which they belong, one example is the development of oxygenic photosynthesis by bacteria, which hugely increased the productivity and diversity of ecosystems. This also caused the oxygenation of the atmosphere, together, these were a prerequisite for the evolution of the most complex eukaryotic cells, from which all multicellular organisms are built

3.
Species
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In biology, a species is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is problematic, for example, with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, or in a ring species, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, morphology, all species are given a two-part name, a binomial. The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs, the second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet. For example, Boa constrictor is one of four species of the Boa genus, Species were seen from the time of Aristotle until the 18th century as fixed kinds that could be arranged in a hierarchy, the great chain of being. In the 19th century, biologists grasped that species could evolve given sufficient time, Charles Darwins 1859 book The Origin of Species explained how species could arise by natural selection. Genes can sometimes be exchanged between species by horizontal transfer, and species may become extinct for a variety of reasons. In his biology, Aristotle used the term γένος to mean a kind, such as a bird or fish, a kind was distinguished by its attributes, for instance, a bird has feathers, a beak, wings, a hard-shelled egg, and warm blood. A form was distinguished by being shared by all its members, Aristotle believed all kinds and forms to be distinct and unchanging. His approach remained influential until the Renaissance, when observers in the Early Modern period began to develop systems of organization for living things, they placed each kind of animal or plant into a context. Many of these early delineation schemes would now be considered whimsical, animals likewise that differ specifically preserve their distinct species permanently, one species never springs from the seed of another nor vice versa. In the 18th century, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus classified organisms according to shared physical characteristics and he established the idea of a taxonomic hierarchy of classification based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships. At the time, however, it was widely believed that there was no organic connection between species, no matter how similar they appeared. However, whether or not it was supposed to be fixed, by the 19th century, naturalists understood that species could change form over time, and that the history of the planet provided enough time for major changes. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his 1809 Zoological Philosophy, described the transmutation of species, proposing that a species could change over time, in 1859, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided a compelling account of evolution and the formation of new species. Darwin argued that it was populations that evolved, not individuals and this required a new definition of species. Darwin concluded that species are what appear to be, ideas

4.
Extinction
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In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms, normally a species. The moment of extinction is considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed. Because a species range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult. This difficulty leads to such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly reappears after a period of apparent absence. More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to five billion species. Estimates on the number of Earths current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described, the relationship between animals and their ecological niches has been firmly established. Mass extinctions are relatively rare events, however, isolated extinctions are quite common, only recently have extinctions been recorded and scientists have become alarmed at the current high rate of extinctions. Most species that become extinct are never scientifically documented, some scientists estimate that up to half of presently existing plant and animal species may become extinct by 2100. A dagger symbol next to a name is often used to indicate its extinction. A species is extinct when the last existing member dies, Extinction therefore becomes a certainty when there are no surviving individuals that can reproduce and create a new generation. Pinpointing the extinction of a species requires a definition of that species. If it is to be declared extinct, the species in question must be distinguishable from any ancestor or daughter species. Extinction of a plays a key role in the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis of Stephen Jay Gould. In ecology, extinction is often used informally to refer to local extinction, in which a species ceases to exist in the area of study. This phenomenon is known as extirpation. Local extinctions may be followed by a replacement of the species taken from other locations, species which are not extinct are termed extant. Those that are extant but threatened by extinction are referred to as threatened or endangered species, currently an important aspect of extinction is human attempts to preserve critically endangered species

5.
Moose
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The moose or elk, Alces alces, is the largest extant species in the deer family. Moose are distinguished by the broad, flat antlers of the males, Moose typically inhabit boreal forests and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests of the Northern Hemisphere in temperate to subarctic climates. Hunting and other activities have caused a reduction in the size of the mooses range over time. Moose have been reintroduced to some of their former habitats, currently, most moose are found in Canada, Alaska, New England, Fennoscandia, Latvia, Estonia and Russia. Their diet consists of terrestrial and aquatic vegetation. The most common predators are the gray wolf along with bears. Unlike most other species, moose are solitary animals and do not form herds. Although generally slow-moving and sedentary, moose can become aggressive and move quickly if angered or startled and their mating season in the autumn features energetic fights between males competing for a female. Alces alces is called a moose in North American English, and that same word elk in North American English refers to a completely different species of deer, the Cervus canadensis, also called the wapiti. A mature male moose is called a bull, a female a cow. The word elk originated from Proto-Germanic languages, from which Old English evolved, the British English word elk has cognates in other Indo-European languages, for example elg in Danish/Norwegian, älg in Swedish, alnis in Latvian, Elch in German, and łoś in Polish. In the continental-European languages, these forms of the word elk almost always refer to the Alces alces, the word moose first entered English by 1606 and is borrowed from the Algonquian languages, and possibly involved forms from multiple languages mutually reinforcing one another. The term moose is a name of North American origin, the animal is known in British English as the elk. The moose became extinct in Britain during the Bronze Age, long before the Europeans discovery of America, the youngest bones were found in Scotland and are roughly 3900 years old. Dictionaries of the 18th century simply described elk as a deer that was as large as a horse, confusingly, the word elk is used in North America to refer to a different animal, Cervus canadensis, which is also called by the Algonkian indigenous name, wapiti. The British began colonizing America in the 17th century, and found two common species of deer for which they had no names, the wapiti appeared very similar to the red deer of Europe although it was much larger and was not red. The moose was a rather strange-looking deer to the colonists, the wapiti is very similar to the red deer of central and western Europe, although it is distinctly different behaviorally and genetically. Early European explorers in North America, particularly in Virginia where there were no moose, called the wapiti elk because of its size, the moose resembled the German elk, which was less familiar to the British colonists

6.
Dodo
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The dodo is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The dodos closest genetic relative was the also extinct Rodrigues solitaire, the closest living relative of the dodo is the Nicobar pigeon. A white dodo was once thought to have existed on the island of Réunion. Subfossil remains show the dodo was about 1 metre tall and may have weighed 10. 6–21.1 kg, the dodos appearance in life is evidenced only by drawings, paintings, and written accounts from the 17th century. Though the dodo has historically been considered fat and clumsy, it is now thought to have been well-adapted for its ecosystem. It has been depicted with brownish-grey plumage, yellow feet, a tuft of feathers, a grey, naked head, and a black, yellow. It used gizzard stones to help digest its food, which is thought to have included fruits, one account states its clutch consisted of a single egg. It is presumed that the dodo became flightless because of the availability of abundant food sources. The first recorded mention of the dodo was by Dutch sailors in 1598, in the following years, the bird was hunted by sailors and invasive species, while its habitat was being destroyed. The last widely accepted sighting of a dodo was in 1662 and its extinction was not immediately noticed, and some considered it to be a mythical creature. In the 19th century, research was conducted on a quantity of remains of four specimens that had been brought to Europe in the early 17th century. Among these is a head, the only soft tissue of the dodo that remains today. Since then, an amount of subfossil material has been collected on Mauritius. The extinction of the dodo within less than a century of its discovery called attention to the previously unrecognised problem of human involvement in the disappearance of entire species. The dodo was variously declared a small ostrich, a rail, Strickland stated that although not identical, these birds shared many distinguishing features of the leg bones, otherwise known only in pigeons. Strickland and Melville established that the dodo was anatomically similar to pigeons in many features and they pointed to the very short keratinous portion of the beak, with its long, slender, naked basal part. Other pigeons also have bare skin around their eyes, almost reaching their beak, the forehead was high in relation to the beak, and the nostril was located low on the middle of the beak and surrounded by skin, a combination of features shared only with pigeons. The legs of the dodo were generally similar to those of terrestrial pigeons than of other birds

7.
Mollusca
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The molluscs compose the large phylum Mollusca of invertebrate animals. Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, molluscs are the largest marine phylum, comprising about 23% of all the named marine organisms. Numerous molluscs also live in freshwater and terrestrial habitats and they are highly diverse, not just in size and in anatomical structure, but also in behaviour and in habitat. The phylum is divided into 9 or 10 taxonomic classes. The gastropods are by far the most numerous molluscs in terms of classified species, the three most universal features defining modern molluscs are a mantle with a significant cavity used for breathing and excretion, the presence of a radula, and the structure of the nervous system. Other than these things, molluscs express great morphological diversity, so many textbooks base their descriptions on an ancestral mollusc. This has a single, limpet-like shell on top, which is made of proteins and chitin reinforced with calcium carbonate, the underside of the animal consists of a single muscular foot. Although molluscs are coelomates, the coelom tends to be small, the main body cavity is a hemocoel through which blood circulates, their circulatory systems are mainly open. The generalized mollusc has two paired nerve cords, or three in bivalves, the brain, in species that have one, encircles the esophagus. Most molluscs have eyes, and all have sensors to detect chemicals, vibrations, the simplest type of molluscan reproductive system relies on external fertilization, but more complex variations occur. All produce eggs, from which may emerge trochophore larvae, more complex veliger larvae, good evidence exists for the appearance of gastropods, cephalopods and bivalves in the Cambrian period 541 to 485.4 million years ago. Molluscs have, for centuries, also been the source of important luxury goods, notably pearls, mother of pearl, Tyrian purple dye and their shells have also been used as money in some preindustrial societies. Mollusc species can also represent hazards or pests for human activities, the bite of the blue-ringed octopus is often fatal, and that of Octopus apollyon causes inflammation that can last for over a month. Stings from a few species of large tropical cone shells can also kill, schistosomiasis is transmitted to humans via water snail hosts, and affects about 200 million people. Snails and slugs can also be serious pests, and accidental or deliberate introduction of some snail species into new environments has seriously damaged some ecosystems. The words mollusc and mollusk are both derived from the French mollusque, which originated from the Latin molluscus, from mollis, molluscus was itself an adaptation of Aristotles τα μαλακά, the soft things, which he applied to cuttlefish. The scientific study of molluscs is accordingly called malacology, as it is now known these groups have no relation to molluscs, and very little to one another, the name Molluscoida has been abandoned. The most universal features of the structure of molluscs are a mantle with a significant cavity used for breathing and excretion

8.
Cephalopod
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A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, fishermen sometimes call them inkfish, referring to their common ability to squirt ink. The study of cephalopods is a branch of known as teuthology. Cephalopods became dominant during the Ordovician period, represented by primitive nautiloids, the class now contains two, only distantly related, extant subclasses, Coleoidea, which includes octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish, and Nautiloidea, represented by Nautilus and Allonautilus. In the Coleoidea, the shell has been internalized or is absent, whereas in the Nautiloidea. About 800 living species of cephalopods have been identified, two important extinct taxa are the Ammonoidea and Belemnoidea. There are over 800 extant species of cephalopod, although new species continue to be described, an estimated 11,000 extinct taxa have been described, although the soft-bodied nature of cephalopods means they are not easily fossilised. Cephalopods are found in all the oceans of Earth, none of them can tolerate freshwater, but the brief squid, Lolliguncula brevis, found in Chesapeake Bay, is a notable partial exception in that it tolerates brackish water. Cephalopods are thought to be unable to live in due to multiple biochemical constraints. Cephalopods occupy most of the depth of the ocean, from the plain to the sea surface. Their diversity is greatest near the equator and decreases towards the poles, Cephalopods are widely regarded as the most intelligent of the invertebrates, and have well developed senses and large brains. The nervous system of cephalopods is the most complex of the invertebrates, the brain is protected in a cartilaginous cranium. Cephalopods have also known to climb out of their aquaria, maneuver a distance of the lab floor, enter another aquarium to feed on the crabs. Cephalopods are social creatures, when isolated from their own kind, some cephalopods are able to fly through the air for distances of up to 50 m. While cephalopods are not particularly aerodynamic, they achieve these impressive ranges by jet-propulsion, the animals spread their fins and tentacles to form wings and actively control lift force with body posture. Cephalopods have advanced vision, can detect gravity with statocysts, and have a variety of sense organs. Octopuses use their arms to explore their environment and can use them for depth perception, most cephalopods rely on vision to detect predators and prey, and to communicate with one another. Consequently, cephalopod vision is acute, training experiments have shown that the octopus can distinguish the brightness, size, shape

9.
Lazarus taxon
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In paleontology, a Lazarus taxon is a taxon that disappears for one or more periods from the fossil record, only to appear again later. Likewise in conservation biology and ecology, it can refer to species or populations that were thought to be extinct, the term refers to the story in the Christian biblical Gospel of John, in which Jesus Christ raised Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus taxa are observational artifacts that appear to either because of extinction, later resupplied. The fossil record is inherently sporadic and contains gaps not necessarily caused by extinction, after mass extinctions, such as the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the Lazarus effect occurred for many taxa. However, there appears to be no link with the abundance of sites and the proportion of Lazarus taxa. Therefore, reappearance of Lazarus taxa probably reflects the rebound after a period of extreme rarity during the aftermath of such extinctions, an Elvis taxon is a look-alike that has supplanted an extinct taxon. A zombie taxon is a taxon that contains specimens that have collected from strata younger than the extinction of the taxon. Later such fossils turn out to be freed from the original seam, for example, a trilobite that gets eroded out of its Cambrian-aged limestone matrix, and reworked into Miocene-aged siltstone. A living fossil is an extant taxon that appears to have changed so little compared with fossil remains, Living fossils may occur regularly in the fossil record, such as the lampshell Lingula, though the living species in this genus are not identical to fossil brachiopods. Other living fossils however are also Lazarus taxa if these have been missing from the record for substantial periods of time. In this last case, the term Lazarus taxon is applied in neontology, animals that are Lazarus taxa are often cited by cryptozoologists as former cryptids. Chacoan peccary, known only from fossils before its discovery in 1975, coelacanth, a member of a subclass thought to have gone extinct 66 million years ago, live specimens found in 1938. Nightcap oak, representing a previously known only from fossils 15 to 20 million years old, were recognized in 1995 and 2000. Gracilidris, a genus of dolichoderine ants thought to have gone extinct 15-20 million years ago was found in Paraguay, Brazil, laotian rock rat, a member of a family thought to have gone extinct 11 million years ago, found in 1996. Majorcan midwife toad, described from remains in 1977, living animals discovered in 1979. Dawn redwood, a genus of conifer, was first described as a fossil from the Mesozoic Era by Shigeru Miki in 1941, monito del monte, a member of a clade thought to have gone extinct 11 million years ago. Monoplacophora, a class of molluscs believed to have gone extinct in the middle Devonian Period until living members were discovered in water off Costa Rica in 1952. Mountain pygmy possum, Australias only truly hibernating marsupial, known originally from the fossil record, schinderhannes bartelsi, a Devonian member of Anomalocarididae, a family previously known only from Cambrian fossils,100 million years earlier

10.
Botany
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Botany, also called plant science, plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who specialises in this field, the term botany comes from the Ancient Greek word βοτάνη meaning pasture, grass, or fodder, βοτάνη is in turn derived from βόσκειν, to feed or to graze. Nowadays, botanists study approximately 410,000 species of plants of which some 391,000 species are vascular plants. Medieval physic gardens, often attached to monasteries, contained plants of medical importance and they were forerunners of the first botanical gardens attached to universities, founded from the 1540s onwards. One of the earliest was the Padua botanical garden and these gardens facilitated the academic study of plants. Efforts to catalogue and describe their collections were the beginnings of plant taxonomy, in the last two decades of the 20th century, botanists exploited the techniques of molecular genetic analysis, including genomics and proteomics and DNA sequences to classify plants more accurately. Modern botany is a broad, multidisciplinary subject with inputs from most other areas of science, dominant themes in 21st century plant science are molecular genetics and epigenetics, which are the mechanisms and control of gene expression during differentiation of plant cells and tissues. Botany originated as herbalism, the study and use of plants for their medicinal properties, many records of the Holocene period date early botanical knowledge as far back as 10,000 years ago. This early unrecorded knowledge of plants was discovered in ancient sites of human occupation within Tennessee, the early recorded history of botany includes many ancient writings and plant classifications. Examples of early works have been found in ancient texts from India dating back to before 1100 BC, in archaic Avestan writings. His major works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, constitute the most important contributions to science until the Middle Ages. De Materia Medica was widely read for more than 1,500 years, important contributions from the medieval Muslim world include Ibn Wahshiyyas Nabatean Agriculture, Abū Ḥanīfa Dīnawarīs the Book of Plants, and Ibn Bassals The Classification of Soils. In the early 13th century, Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati, and Ibn al-Baitar wrote on botany in a systematic and scientific manner and these gardens continued the practical value of earlier physic gardens, often associated with monasteries, in which plants were cultivated for medical use. They supported the growth of botany as an academic subject, lectures were given about the plants grown in the gardens and their medical uses demonstrated. Botanical gardens came much later to northern Europe, the first in England was the University of Oxford Botanic Garden in 1621, throughout this period, botany remained firmly subordinate to medicine. German physician Leonhart Fuchs was one of the three German fathers of botany, along with theologian Otto Brunfels and physician Hieronymus Bock, Fuchs and Brunfels broke away from the tradition of copying earlier works to make original observations of their own. Bock created his own system of plant classification, physician Valerius Cordus authored a botanically and pharmacologically important herbal Historia Plantarum in 1544 and a pharmacopoeia of lasting importance, the Dispensatorium in 1546. Naturalist Conrad von Gesner and herbalist John Gerard published herbals covering the medicinal uses of plants, naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi was considered the father of natural history, which included the study of plants

Human cancer cells with nuclei (specifically the DNA) stained blue. The central and rightmost cell are in interphase, so the entire nuclei are labeled. The cell on the left is going through mitosis and its DNA has condensed.

Here the relation between genotype and phenotype is illustrated, using a Punnett square, for the character of petal color in pea plants. The letters B and b represent genes for color, and the pictures show the resultant flowers.